14 Exterior Painting Steps To A Better Looking House

 There are prerequisite steps that must be taken to properly prepare your home's exterior for it to last and have that quality look. In addition to your preparations, there are important application procedures that will serve to deliver a nice looking paint job you can be surely proud of.

1. The first step in preparation for exterior painting is to properly clean your home’s exterior. Pressure wash your house using M1 and bleach, making sure flaking paint, dirt, mildew, green algae, wasp nest, and other obstructions are removed. Once washed, scrape any remainder of loose paint off with a sharp scraper and metal brush. Sand any bare wood to prepare it for primer. You should wear some kind of eye protection from the bleach and then start at the top and work your way down. Hold the nozzle of the pressure washer about six inches away from the surface and at a 45 degree angle.
2. Sometimes mildew can still exist after this process. You may need to apply concentrated bleach to a rag and scrub these areas. Mildew is attracted to the oil in oil-based paints but will grow on latex paints as well. If mildew is growing on your home, and you can't seem to eliminate it completely, you may want to add some mildew inhibitor to your paint. However, I will give you a word of caution at this point. Good quality paints already have a safe amount of mildew inhibitors engineered into their formulas. Adding more mildewcide to your paint can cause your paint to fade prematurely if you get a lot of exposure to sunlight. Allow your house to dry about 24 hours before painting and priming bare wood.
3. The durability of exterior painting is significantly improved with proper caulking. This is due to the ability of caulk to keep moisture from getting to substrate surfaces that the paint bonds to. To help caulk bond properly, always spread the bead of caulk with your finger. When caulking trim to brick, make sure you use a very narrow bead of caulk but do not spread with your finger, or you will make a mess of the caulk line and have to clean your brick. Just use some common sense when caulking. If you are caulking Hardie Plank, use a top quality elastomeric caulk with a high stretch capacity. This is important because Hardie Plank expands and contracts more than most caulks can handle.
4. You will need to check all metal surfaces such as railings and gutters for peeling paint. Remove loose paint with a metal brush or power brush. Effective acrylic bonding primers exist on the market today for priming bare metal. If you are painting brick, check for cracks. Seal all cracks in the mortar joints with caulk before painting.
5. If masonry is less than five years old it can leach out under a painted coating. For this reason it should be etched with a solution of muriatic acid (1 part acid to 5 parts water). Be sure and take appropriate precautions. This acid is very caustic to your skin. Wear rubber gloves and goggles for protection. Pour the water in a plastic container first, and then slowly add the acid. This will help prevent splashing. Scrub this compound into concrete. This solution will neutralize the acid in the concrete. Remove the solution with fresh water. Your concrete is now etched and ready to be painted after you let it dry.
6. inspect your home carefully for any bare wood. Prime the bare wood with a high quality latex primer or a top quality oil base primer. This primer coat is the only coat that bonds directly to the wood; therefore, it needs to be of top quality. Did you know that a top coat of paint on your home is no better than the first coat that is applied to the bare wood? If the first coat (the primer coat) fails, then the top coats and primer coat peel off together exposing bare wood.
7. If your exterior painting plan includes spraying your siding with paint, then consider masking around light fixtures, motion sensors, electrical boxes, etc. I recommend covering all windows with plastic and tape. This will save you a lot of time in cleanup.
8. In my opinion, as a professional in the exterior painting industry, where siding joins trim, always cut your trim in to the outer leading edge of the board instead of following the contour of your siding. This produces greater eye appeal from a distance. Where the siding meets the trim is always rounded out with caulk, making it a very poor place to scribe a straight line with your brush.
9. Don’t leave your shrubs, walk ways, roofs, patios, and related surfaces unprotected. Be sure and cover them with drop cloths. Keep in mind, clean up is much more time consuming than cover up.
10. When painting exterior surfaces, the do-it-yourself-er has one major consideration, the weather. Paints have optimum conditions in which they should be applied. It is best not to paint in extreme heat, cold or in the presence of precipitation. Check your paint can label for temperature restrictions. If you are planning on exterior painting during the winter, be sure and use a low temp paint. Low temp paints give you a greater temperature range for winter painting.
11. In most cases it makes better sense to paint the siding first and then the trim. If you are planning to stain or paint your decks or patio, then do them last, since you will be working off them during your project. It is best to work from the top down since you will be dripping some paint onto the siding below. Although you need to work from top down, you also should work from side to side as much as possible. Following this procedure will assist you in avoiding a lot of up and down motion on ladders during your exterior painting project.
12. When using a roller to applying paint to lap siding, be sure and back brush after applying with a roller to achieve a smoother finish. Roller naps leave a texture to the surface. Be sure and coat the underside edge of each board of lap siding to prevent water absorption from rain. Some types of siding are notorious for water absorption on the bottom edge of the board.
13. For stucco, I recommend spraying and dry back rolling to achieve an even distribution of paint. The sprayer applies the paint and the roller simple spreads the paint. Use W strokes with the roller. Do not dip the roller in paint as you will be applying to much paint and over filling the pores of the stucco.
14. Cedar shingles with their uneven surface can be painted with a brush or sprayer. I personally believe you can achieve the best look using a paint sprayer to coat cedar shingles and most other types of siding. Brushing highly textured siding such as cedar, tends to leave lap marks. Spraying helps avoid this look.
Substandard preparation may save you a little bit of time, but it will come back to you in durability and quality of appearance. It is always best to take your time with the above procedures. They will produce an exterior painting job for home that you will be proud to display.